Wednesday, 9 November 2016

To Hillary – We’re sorry that more than half of the forty years you’ve tirelessly spent in public service, have seen you endure a relentless attack on your appearance, character and, most troublingly, your capability. We’re sorry that you awoke today in a world that unequivocally values the Y chromosome over a lifetime of experience.

To the media – We’re sorry that constant accusations of ‘rigging’ and ‘bias’ have caused you to default on your primary responsibility of holding the candidates to account for their policies and pronouncements. By willfully misinterpreting the need for impartiality, your dereliction of duty helped to establish a false equivalency that enabled voters to glibly dismiss both candidates as being ‘as bad as each other.’

To the Republican surrogates – We’re sorry that you were called upon to engage in months of endless, screaming misdirection and obfuscation, in place of calm, reasoned analysis of the candidates’ positions. Given that many of you are women and mothers yourselves, we’re also sorry you’ll one day have to explain your part in this nightmare to your children.

To the Democratic surrogates – We’re sorry that you spent the entire campaign waiting for your turn to speak, and when it arrived, found yourself having to make sense of an endless barrage of shrill misinformation.

To the ‘left-behind’ middle class – We’re sorry successive Republican candidates have repeatedly encouraged you to vote against your own best interests – destablising your communities, defunding essential programmes, and eating away at your standard of living – only to offer up a series of convenient scapegoats for the downward trajectory of your socio-economic status.

To the secret voters – We’re sorry you felt ashamed by your choices when asked by polling teams how you intended to vote. But if you were self-aware enough to keep your selection a secret, we suspect there was a tinge of embarrassment behind it.

To the third party voters – We’re sorry your need for bragging rights over your antipathy towards establishment candidates drove you to enable the greatest threat to freedom and democracy in the history of the Republic.

To the Obamas – We’re sorry that your grace, intelligence, compassion and dedication to your country was effectively squandered overnight, and that your country’s reaction to eight years of exemplary leadership was to elect a candidate officially endorsed by the KKK.

To the immigrants – We’re sorry that a country and culture that was founded, sustained and strengthened by generations of immigrations, has so quickly forgotten its melting-pot heritage and chosen to mischaracterise you as the enemy.

To the Muslims and Jews – We’re sorry that the concept of ‘religious freedom’ works better in the Constitution that it does in practice, which is why it’s now being re-appropriated to only apply to one religion. And it isn’t yours.

To the people of colour – We’re sorry that the worth of your lives has become open to debate, and that half the country felt emboldened to blame you for society’s ills, while the other half waited for you to show up and save the day.

To the LBBTQ+ community – We’re sorry your long-fought battle for equality in the eyes of the law may have all been for naught, as your hard-won victories could soon be overturned by a zealous and unsympathetic Vice President. In particular, we’re sorry that the transgendered community has been painted as a greater threat to women and girls in public bathrooms, than a newly-elected President who openly boasts of sexual assault.

To women – We’re sorry that your dream of shattering that last glass ceiling has been put on hold for at least another election cycle. We’re sorry that Susan B. Anthony’s legacy has yet to be fully realised, and that it was women who helped carry a misogynistic candidate to his decisive victory. We're sorry that sexual assault has been legitimised, enabled and diminished by an indifferent electorate. And finally, we're sorry that your body will now be legislated against your will.

To children – We’re sorry that you will grow up in a world where suspicion, bullying and intolerance are behaviours endorsed by the highest office in the land. We hope you’ll find alternative role models who will guide you in the right direction.

Thursday, 21 April 2016

Whenever someone famous dies, there’s always a race to try
and encapsulate their magic in a hastily-written eulogy. And in a year that has
seen a virtual cull of the great and the good, there’s certainly been no
shortage of ‘hot takes.’ So I find myself writing this tribute to Victoria Wood
somewhat tentatively. After all, I’m sure countless writers have already posted
their own impeccably crafted tributes to Lancashire’s finest comedian, singer-songwriter
and One Cal spokeswoman. The flags will already be flying at half-mast in
Manchesterford.

But it has to be done. The thing is, I’m convinced that there’s
a whole generation of writers who feel that they owe Victoria Wood a debt of
gratitude. Not just for the laughs, of which there were far too many to
mention. But also, for instilling in us a love of words themselves. Rather than
writing jokes, which would have felt too formulaic coming from such an astute observational
comedian, Victoria Wood understood the idiosyncrasies of language. And she reveled
in it.

Victoria Wood never had to rely on slapstick, wordplay or
farce. Instead, she specialised in monologues and two-handers – impeccably capturing
the absurdities and nuances of how ordinary people speak. Unsurprisingly, given
her Northern upbringing, she also had an uncanny ear for regional dialects,
which is why so much of her best material was reserved for Julie Walters, whose
own prodigious talents deserve separate celebration.

Despite being an exceptional stand-up, Wood’s humility and unassuming
nature often came through in her performances, which is why she was always
content to give the showier lines (and parts) to other members of her fiercely
loyal, but unofficial company of performers.

The characters who occupied Victoria’s world often had sharp
tongues, but were rarely unkind. The closest she ever came to abject cruelty,
was Walters’ character in the bittersweet TV movie Pat and Margaret, sniping: “I
can’t be seen to have a blood relative and a Lancashire accent you could go
trick-or-treating in.” Instead, like many of the Northern battle-axes depicted
on Coronation Street, to which Victoria paid unforgettable tribute in one of
her finest sketches, the humour often came from an unvarnished take on the eccentricities
of modern life.

In one classic sketch, written for Julie Walters, a woman
commented: “She’s trouble all round, with her bloomin’ sex changes. I never
know whether to get her to wash up, or help push-start a Montego.” Even in the
less-enlightened early nineties, Wood avoided making a transgendered woman the
butt of the joke. Here, the humour comes from the despairing practicality of
Walters’ character. In another classic moment, a woman reflects on her
suspicions about her husband’s affair with a short neighbour, remarking
angrily, “I wondered why he’d had that cat-flap widened.”

For many of my peers, Wood’s world of hairnets and pikelets,
bilberry yoghurts and opinion polls, was easily dismissed as safe,
middle-of-the-road. Mumsy, even. As my contemporaries sought out the edgier alternative
comedy that proliferated in the late eighties, or the surrealism of acts like
Vic and Bob, Victoria Wood’s knack for wringing laughs from words like
architrave and vestibule remained unrivalled. At the heart of her writing was
an understanding of the tension between aspiration and earthiness; pretension
and pragmatism. She understood the women who’d discuss the evening news, only
to fixate on the newsreaders’ outfits: “Three bangles and a polo neck, thank
you.” As an embodiment of Susan Sontag’s
definitive explanation of ‘camp,’ her writing delighted in treating frivolous
things seriously, and serious things frivolously.

Rarely swearing, and seldom conjuring anything spicier than
a PG rating would allow for, Wood was able to mine countless belly laughs from a
carefully curated lexicon of ridiculous-sounding words. Like the free gift with
every purchase of Sacharel cosmetics, her language was “packed to the
drawstring with handy-sized oddments.”

Her taste for the absurdism of the everyday often came to
the fore in a series of impeccably performed mini-documentaries that pre-dated
The Day Today and The Office by well over a decade. Despite being
laugh-out-loud funny, they had an undercurrent of pathos, even tragedy at
times, that showed where her sympathies lay. Her songs were equally empathetic.
Yesterday, Twitter was awash with misquotes of the legendary Woman’s Weekly
line from The Ballad of Barry and Freda, but there were other, lesser-known
gems in her repertoire that carried far more weight. In particular, Crush captured
the loneliness of unrequited teenage infatuation with just as much insight as
Janis Ian’s At 17, albeit from a uniquely British perspective: “I saw you
today, well, I just saw your blazer, and it went through my heart like the beam
of a laser, and I thought that today, you would turn around and see me but you didn’t.”

I’ve seen comments that, before Victoria Wood, women were practically
invisible in comedy. And no doubt, her success with As Seen On TV, inspired and
enabled countless other female comedians. But Victoria was never a trail-blazer
by intent – in fact it was her resolutely conventional perspective that allowed
her appeal to transcend multiple generations, often at the same time.

But there was something else, something fundamental, about
her influence. I realized yesterday, as I posted a hasty tribute on Facebook,
just how many of my deepest friendships had, in some way, been cemented by a
mutual, enduring love of her work. For a generation of gays, especially, here
was a language that was all our own. “Hold your ponies, Pam,” and “Can I crash
by, I’m a diabetic,” became a kind of post-liberation Polari. As our peers
waffled on about football, or the latest band vying for a place on the cover of
NME, we’d be laughing at the check-out girl’s dog blanket (”He were called
Whiskey”), or asking if anyone had seen our friend, Kimberly. Without realizing
it, Victoria Wood gave a generation of gays a voice; one that sounded an awful
lot like Julie Walters doing a Brummie accent.

Victoria Wood didn’t focus on underdogs – she simply celebrated
real people. Hers was a world stuffed full of Colins and Connies, Tunstalls and
Mottersheds. And to anyone who grew up North of Watford, there was an unmistakable
authenticity to it all. We could hear the origins of her humour in our own
families. I remember, when my Grandma turned 92, a relative bought her a
beautiful pashmina scarf. I commented how nice it was, and that she’d look
lovely if she wore it whenever she went out. She simply pursed her lips, and
said “I only ever go as far as the bins.” She wasn’t cracking a joke – that’s
just how she spoke. And Victoria Wood understood that better than anyone.

Monday, 31 August 2015

Horror directors are often mischaracterised as schlock merchants; exploitative hacks, happy to pander to the basest instincts of a lowest-common-denominator audience. In a genre that regularly suffers from an absence of wit, characters become little more than ciphers, kept alive long enough to lose their shirt, and their virginity shortly thereafter, before being hacked to pieces in gory detail. And the films themselves? Many struggle to pad out ninety minutes, with little in the way of story, dialogue or a compelling motivation for the killer or their victims.

And so it was, in 1996, that Wes Craven decided to bite the hand that had been feeding him for over twenty years, with Scream; a film that managed to assassinate and resurrect this most maligned of genres with one slash of a serrated hunting knife. Unusually for Craven, his role here was as a director for hire - the screenplay was all the work of Kevin Williamson, a young screenwriter who'd grown up on the films of Craven, Carpenter and Cunningham.

An auteur in the truest sense, Craven usually scripted his own movies, but something in Scream (at the time, called Scary Movie) spoke to his frustration with the genre he'd made his own. And although much of the arch dialogue and knowing references bit their thumb at well-established cliches, Craven knew that he was exempt from much of this criticism. Because Craven never played by the rules. He wanted us to believe that the hills had eyes, and that his horror films had a brain.

Wes Craven was never supposed to be a film-maker. His strictly religious upbringing meant he had no access to TV or movies, and only began his love affair with film when he went off to college. Academia seemed more suited to his quietly introspective and intellectual demeanour, which is why he started out a Professor of Humanities. After some behind-the-scenes work with his friend Sean Cunningham, who was later to create the Friday 13th franchise, the pair concocted a low-budget concept for a horror film.

Depicting the graphic rape and murder of two teenage girls at the hands of a gang of drug addicts, and the violent revenge exacted by one of the girls' parents, Last House On The Left was a gruelling and unpleasant experience. But even in those early, lo-fi days, where Craven's ambition greatly outweighed his technical proficiency, critics were aware that there was a thoughtful intelligence behind the graphic cruelty. After all, few low budget horrors crowding the bill at the local drive-in could lay claim to being a contemporary re-telling of an Ingmar Bergman classic.

Last House On The Left was followed in 1978 by The Hills Have Eyes, which depicted a family fighting for their lives against an inbred posse of mutants in the desert. The story was inspired by the Scottish legend of Sawney Bean and his cannibalistic clan, and once again featured graphic violence, dark humour, and a subtle commentary on the nature of 'civilisation.' As in his debut, Craven was keen to explore the tipping point between civility and retribution, since he was fascinated with our own dark reflection. When pushed to the limit, he argued, we all have the potential to become as feral and bloodthirsty as our tormentors.

The early eighties were initially a fallow period, as Craven tried his hand at comic book movies (the forgettable Swamp Thing adaptation) and religious cults (Deadly Blessing), before creating the most iconic horror character of the last thirty years. A Nightmare On Elm Street was dismissed by every studio in Hollywood as a late entry in the already out-of-favour slasher cycle. A relentless barrage of derivative and tedious films had worn out their welcome with an undiscriminating audience with a seemingly inexhaustible hunger for seeing nubile young teens being chopped to pieces by an anonymous psycho in a mask.

Thankfully, Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema, saw something different in Craven's script. There was a teasing surrealism to the dream sequences, strongly written lead characters, and an enigmatic villain with a truly unique weapon - inspired by mankind's primordial fear of animal claws. In Freddy Krueger, Craven had created a genuinely iconic villain who was to Fangoria magazine what Princess Diana was to the Daily Express. The parade of sequels (most of which, with the exception of Part 3, had no input from Craven) may have turned him into the Bob Hope of horror, but Craven's unrelenting original made him terrifying, unpredictable and unforgettable.

Buoyed by his first truly mainstream hit, Craven explored other areas of the genre - rarely recapturing the same level of financial success, but always with the same creative vigour and vision. Many fans argue that 1989's Shocker was probably the low point in his career, as his mandate to create a 'new Freddy' was a little too obvious. As a psychopathic TV repairman with a psychic link to his estranged son, Mitch Pileggi seemed to enjoy his one outing as Horace Pinker, but even Craven's most devoted fans could tell that this was no franchise starter. Even so, Shocker enabled the auteur to pointedly satirise the wasteland of late eighties TV, culminating in an inspired chase and fight sequence that saw hero and villain interrupting multiple broadcasts across a number of channels.

Craven was back firing on all cylinders in 1991, when he turned his disgust at stories of teenage victims abducted and imprisoned in seemingly ordinary suburban homes, into a coruscating satire of Reaganomics. He even cast Ed and Nadine Hurley (from TV's Twin Peaks) as a hyper-real take on Ron and Nancy, literally devouring the urban underclass, when they weren't applying the old adage of 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' with a brutal literalism. The film failed to find a mainstream audience, but those that recognised the political subtext, could see that here was a master at the height of his craft.

This winning streak continued in 1994 when Craven boldly decided to revisit his most successful creation; this time adding a meta-commentary about the role of horror films in a world with no shortage of real-life terrors. Craven was always a firm believer that the genre offers a cathartic release for audiences, and chose to explore this through a story which saw the cast of the original Elm Street returning to play themselves. Long before Larry David applied a similar conceit to improvisational comedy in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Craven envisaged a heightened reality that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. In the process, he made informed observations about humanity's need to contain evil through story-telling, and managed to make Freddy Krueger genuinely terrifying again. Scream may have popularised the meta-horror subgenre, but Wes Craven's New Nightmare invented it.

In reflection, it's easy to see the appeal of the Scream franchise to someone like Craven. Not only did Williamson's script offer some ingeniously structured set-pieces, it gave him ample opportunity to interrogate the clichés and conventions of a genre that often favoured insides over insights. Once again, he also demonstrated a sharp eye for casting, assembling a surprising ensemble that included Drew Barrymore, Courtney Cox and The Fonz. Unfortunately, the law of diminishing returns saw the scares dwindle as the glib dialogue increased, but all were shot with ruthless efficiency and a keen eye for staging.

Along the way, Craven also tried his hand at Oscar-baiting melodrama, scoring a nomination for Meryl Streep as a music teacher, an ill-advised vampire comedy with a 'difficult' Eddie Murphy, and a fast-moving thriller shot in almost-real-time. But it's only right that he should be remembered as a master of horror.

Wes Craven passed away today at the age of 76, from brain cancer. Part of the reason this news came as such a shock, was that he had shown no signs of slowing down, with novels, TV shows and films still in active development. Still, he leaves us with an incomparable legacy of classic films, that will continue to frighten and inspire future generations.

But even as we look back at his career, it's worth remembering the now-legendary strap line from his film debut. The posters might have screamed "Keep telling yourself, it's ONLY a movie..." But whenever Wes was involved, it was always something more.

Tuesday, 11 August 2015

In case you missed it, today’s Daily Express front cover is
yet another lazy attack on the BBC, screaming indignantly that “This is how the
BBC is spending your money,” over the revelation that Songs of Praise is being
filmed at the migrant camp in Calais. Now, I’m as annoyed as anyone that Songs
of Praise is still on the air, but the fact is, the BBC has never been short of
critics for what some see as institutionalised profligacy.

Similar accusations were levelled at the corporation back in
the early 1990s, when it was revealed that the BBC was building a huge complex
on the Costa Del Sol for its bold new serialised drama. Costing somewhere in
the region of £10m, the critics were piling onto Eldorado before a single
awkward, barely audible minute had even been filmed.

It could have all turned out so differently. In those heady
days of pre-Maastricht enthusiasm, there seemed to be a genuine desire to embrace
an informal European Union. At that time, the only acknowledgement of a
bustling, dynamic Europe on our TV screens was the curious Henry Kelly-fronted
quiz Going For Gold. Here, a retired dinner lady from Bolton could effortlessly wipe
the floor with a PhD from Luxembourg, simply because all the questions were in
English. We were, as a nation, cautiously optimistic about feeling more
connected to Europe – intrigued by the possibilities of open boarders, if not
exactly cock-a-hoop at the idea of a continental breakfast in Bridlington.

In the seven years since its debut, EastEnders had grown
into a ratings juggernaut – regularly besting Coronation Street - despite its
oppressively downbeat tone and the kind of styling that made its cast look as
if they’d crawled from the wreckage of a burning meth lab. What was needed was
a sunny, cheerful, multi-cultural froth – focusing on a diverse group of
ex-pats, unfolding sofa beds, regretting the sangria, and suspiciously sniffing
the unfamiliar cheese on the Costa.

Created by the ‘can’t-fail’ duo of Tony Holland and Julia
Smith, Eldorado attempted to mine its mostly light-hearted drama from the
interconnectivity of a community that found friendship and love could overcome
any linguistic boundary. Or, at least, that was the idea. The reality, was
notably less auspicious.

For a start, the race to begin filming required a number of
short-cuts to be taken on the casting front. Filling out the core British cast
with native German, French, Spanish and Danish speakers was a noble venture,
but the casting directors forgot to check the English capabilities of their
European performers.

Within their own homes, the characters would converse in
their native tongue, which managed to disguise a multitude of sins. Bizarrely,
the powers-that-be had decided that viewers didn’t need subtitles to follow
these scenes; ignoring the fact that even Meryl Streep would struggle to convey
the complexity and nuance of unpaid spa bills in Danish. Elsewhere, the actors
were forced to communicate in English, a task that many of them made seem about
as effortless as riding a hostess trolley around Brands Hatch.

Not that the British cast members fared much better – many
of them delivered their own dialogue as though they were being prompted off screen
in semaphore. Unsurprisingly, only the older performers had any chance of
redeeming themselves; when they weren’t struggling with what appeared to be
some hastily-fitted dentures.

As if the dialogue and delivery weren’t problematic enough,
matters weren’t helped by the appalling acoustics created by the purpose-built
set. Unlike regular British soaps, which tend to alternate between outside
broadcasts for exterior shots and studio locations for interiors, Eldorado was
all shot on location. The sound bounced around the whitewashed walls, creating
a kind of echo-chamber, where every line sounded somehow less convincing with
every reverberation.

The show itself went through three key phases, during its
tragically short life. The first, was its chaotic opening, as a complex
tapestry of faces, names and language skills attempted to deliver tons of
expository dialogue and background character details that could have been
ripped off wholesale from Blind Date – filed under “What’s your name, and where
do you come from?”

The show’s creators were clearly struggling as well. They
seemed to be aiming for a light screwball tone for much of the first few
episodes, but as a consequence, this left half the unprepared cast acting as if
they’d suffered a head injury. With no discernible plots to pursue, and a knack
for conversation that made Siri seem warm and engaging, many of the secondary
characters floundered. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when the need for a
dramatic overhaul was announced.

With new producers on board, briefed to clean house with
extreme prejudice, the second phase of Eldorado took a decidedly dark turn.
Those performers whose line delivery was about as reliable as second class
post, were given their marching orders – and probably still needed help
following the directions. As the actors were issued with one-way Ryanair
flights back to Luton, their characters were hastily written out of the show.
And given how irrelevant most of them were, the writers seemed to revel in
their own ruthlessness.

Fizz, initially set up to bring a touch of youthful glamour,
went missing overnight, only to die off-screen when her body washed up under
Brighton Pier. This revelation came in the form of one of those two-hander
episodes so beloved by EastEnders, but lost much of its impact delivered by a
hyperactive Nick Moran in a badly-lit apartment. Likewise, the sudden
revelation that bumbling middle-aged restaurateur Bunny was actually a
predatory, opportunistic paedophile, seemed needlessly dark.

At around the same time, Gavin and Alan Hindle who, in
another life, could have sustained a whole series of Magaluf Weekender, were
dispatched back to Nottingham when one of them contracted schizophrenia in the
time it takes to brush the sand off a deckchair.

And then there was the double-whammy of Javier. First, he
was revealed to be Paco, the not-so-imaginary secret lover of Freddie, the only
gay in the villa, on the eve of his wedding to Ingrid. But before viewers had a
chance to process the first decent cliff-hanger in Eldorado’s history, Javier
died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the very next episode. Given that most
soaps feel the need to reveal their hand slowly – Bobby Beale will probably
have an OBE by the time the whole of Albert Square discovers his secret – this
rapid-fire approach to revelations rewarded those of us who’d stuck with the
show through its so-bad-it’s-good era. We thrilled to the idea that anyone
could and would be wiped out at a moment’s notice. Think Game of Thrones, but
with a few more crocodile-shaped lilos.

The axing of all that dead wood, did allow certain other
characters to shine, albeit not always for the right reasons. In particular,
the creators’ desire to celebrate the diversity of Europe often fell into
caricature and cliché.

Put-upon housewife Gwen was such a sad-sack that we half
expected to see King Edwards stencilled onto her blouse, and her belligerent
drunken Scottish husband made Rab C Nesbitt seem subtle by comparison. In
contrast to Gwen’s never-ending despair, there was Isabelle Leduc, the French
housewife and aspiring novelist who was a constantly simmering volcano of sexual
longing. Delivering all her lines as if she was hyperventilating into a brown
paper bag, she was forever punching away at a typewriter in a shimmering
nightie, or cheating on her mahogany husband whenever he disappeared to give
another tennis lesson.

Olive the English busybody was an elderly Mail-reading
spinster, and 'Snowy' White was a feckless Irish handyman straight out of the
Builders episode of Fawlty Towers. Then there was Marcus Tandy. A
slick-haired snake oil salesman who dressed like he'd fallen out of a Bacardi
ad, Maaarrrrrkkuusss was forever barking orders into a phone so large that it
pushed the very definition of ‘mobile.’ And that's just scratching the surface
of this lukewarm gazpacho of multi-culturalism quietly curdling in the midday
sun.

And yet some indefinable quality, barely visible to
the naked eye, kept viewers coming back. Not many, admittedly. Six months in,
and it sometimes felt like there were more people appearing in Eldorado, than actually
watching it back home. By this point, the show had evolved (as much by accident
as by design) into a pretty compelling soap opera, but unfortunately; it was
too little, too late.

The final phase of Eldorado’s short-lived time on BBC One
came, ironically, after the axe had already fallen. Alan Yentob decided to cut
his losses and called time on Joy’s bar. By this point, the cast members
surviving those dark early days had finally grown into their roles, the sound
engineers had fixed the audio, and the producers had delivered some genuinely
gripping drama.

As it hobbled to its unavoidable conclusion, one year after that
inauspicious debut, the fans finally had a show to match its initial promise.
Sadly, the rumoured ending, expected to involve the entire cast being driven off
a cliff during an excursion, never materialised. Instead, after 159 episodes,
the final credits rolled on a brave, foolhardy experiment, with lyrics added to
its plink-plonky theme, now entitled “When You Go Away.”The final shots saw cheeky bad-boy Marcus
Tandy and Pilar “You’re gettin’ right up my nose” Moreno ride off into the
sunset, after a failed assassination attempt.

A few weeks ago, someone with far too much time on their
hands uploaded the entire series to YouTube, so it can be preserved in all its
tarnished glory. So treat yourself to a guided tour of Los Barcos. Stop by
Joy’s Bar for a happy hour cocktail, be serenaded by the ageless (and largely
tuneless) Trish Valentine, or try renting one of the eight films in Spain’s
most under-stocked video library. You’ll be sure of a warm welcome, even if
Eldorado was never afforded the same privilege.

Friday, 17 April 2015

The morning after the Opposition Leaders’ debate, and Nigel Farage is busy attacking the BBC for its “liberal bias,” arguing that it packed the audience with lefties, solely to jeer at his Dad’s Army-era world-view. And true to type, this will initiate yet another debate about the BBC’s perceived lack of objectivity. Never mind the fact that the right wing has such stranglehold on the majority of our news media that ITV is considering adding “News for Hard-Working Families” to the opening titles of its six o’clock bulletin.

But look – see how easy it is to lose sight of the real story? Instead of leading the coverage with Farage’s complaint, journalists should be doing their job. Perhaps they could argue that even the most UKIP-favourable polls have the ‘people’s army’ topping out at around 12%. That means 88% of any random sampling of people is likely to be anywhere from ambivalent to violently opposed to Farage and his chaotic rabble of unreconstructed racists, sexists and homophobes. No wonder then, that the trout-faced lunatic encountered some vocal opposition from the crowd last night. He must get that wherever he goes, except that in most cases he can’t blame the BBC for the boos. He probably thinks that it’s KirstyWark leaving flaming bags of feces on his doorstep.

Sadly, today’s politicians are masters of obfuscation rather than diplomacy. So instead of addressing difficult truths with well-articulated rebuttals, they simply change the subject. In the popular US drama Scandal, ‘political fixer’ Olivia Pope regularly advises her troubled clients to “Change the narrative.” It’s a simple enough tactic, made even easier when our complacent news media are willing to chase the stick every time it’s thrown. And it’s getting worse.

In the five years since the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats entered into their unholy union, we’ve seen unprecedented attacks on vast swathes of the population. Zero-hour contracts replacing reliable employment, job seekers forced into unpaid placements in massive organisations, and a whole class of people mischaracterised as scroungers, cheats and layabouts.

Now, with a new election looming, and the opportunity to kick the coalition out on their pin-striped arse tantalisingly close, attention has finally switched to the people in power, rather than the ones silently pouring their drinks, parking their cars and cleaning their kitchens. Unfortunately, the news media still seems unwilling to unpack the real issues at the heart of the debate. Instead, they keep amplifying the government’s talking points.

Yesterday, you may have noticed that all the right-wing tabloids were falling over themselves to level accusations of hypocrisy and double standards at the Labour Party. It seems that the Tories’ out-of-touch Bullingdon Club ethos is rendered moot; if it can be proved that prominent Labour figures occasionally shop at Waitrose or drop the kids off at school in an A-Class.

So instead of coming up with a tangible rejoinder to accusations of wealth inequality under our current government (and a Conservative Party manifesto that determined to make matters worse), they're pointing their fingers at the opposition and simply attempting to smear Labour with the same ivory-handled brush.

"Look," they cry, "Ed Miliband has a nanny, and house that's big enough for two kitchens. Such rank hypocrisy for a party that claims to be for the working man [and woman]."As a consequence, the public do as they’re told, concluding that, where politicians are concerned, they’re all as bad as each other.

In fact, this notion of the ‘Champagne socialist' is an asinine non-argument. It’s rhetoric that’s long been favoured in the U.S., where Republicans have spent decades attempting to portray the Democrats as the party of snooty elitists, in order to encourage working class people to vote against their own best interests. Now, our ownnews media is employing similar tactics, and no-one has the balls to take these venal, disingenuous toadies to task, for repeating the same old fallacies.

Here’s the shocker - being in a position of wealth does not preclude the desire to see a more fair and equitable society. Or, for that matter, the determination and drive to make it happen. Likewise, having money, and empathising with those who do not, are not mutually exclusive concepts. This is something that our current government (and their complicit friends in the press) struggle to comprehend.

I've always argued that, when it comes to determining the suitability of our public servants, intellect and IQ are far less relevant than emotional intelligence. Whether it's blithe comments made by politicians about how easy it is to live on the minimum wage, to the on-going campaign of misinformation about the benefits system and its dependents, inequality is always exacerbated by an unwillingness or inability to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.

That's why we should refuse to sit silently by, as people who want to make the world a little fairer, a little more equal, and a little more liveable for the majority, are lambasted for having the audacity to enjoy the trappings of a successful life themselves. The fact is, a life of comfort and convenience is something to which we all aspire. There's certainly no shame in that. It's just that some of us are a little more willing to try and afford other people the same opportunity.

Thursday, 16 October 2014

Ahead of the tenth series of The
Apprentice, which kicked off this week with an overpopulated double bill, the
BBC ran a cleverly edited compilation, designed to bring the uninitiated
up-to-date, as well as celebrate some of the show’s former glories. Less than
five minutes in, it became clear that there was a clear editorial agenda at
work. What had started out innocently enough as a mildly irritating celebration
of 21st century entrepreneurialism, quickly descended into a
farcical soup of hair-gel, mangled metaphors and hubris.

With every passing year, the contestants
became more and more outrageously self-satisfied. Prompted into uttering ever
more banal declarations of accomplishment, the would-be Apprentii were never
really in contention for a job. They were just bright-eyed village idiots,
tricked into the stocks with the promise of a six figure salary and an Amstrad
Email Phone. Anyone tuning in for genuine insights into the fast-moving world
of big business was shit out of luck. Instead, this was a pinstriped sitcom,
with helicopter shots of the Square Mile to replace the canned laughter. And if
you think I’m over-stating things, let’s take a look at what I learned about
the cut-throat world of business from the first two episodes of Series 10.

Volume
and repetition trumps comprehension

You only needed to watch the girls blinking
incredulously as Nick helpfully popped on his Countdown mortarboard and offered
the synonym “Moral turpitude,” to know that they never had a clue what their
own team name ‘Decadence’ meant. Over on the boys’ team, they spent 48 hours
constantly imploring each other to “let me finish,” without any of them ever
making a point. Stephen, Canary Wharf’s answer to Hollywood Montrose, was a
particularly audible proponent of the “I’m sorry, can I finish speaking” school
of conversation.

It’s
all about sounding business, not doing business.

Whether they were talking about buying “two
kay-gee” of products, unaware that it had just as many syllables as ‘kilos,’ or
bemoaning the fact that “We forgot the capital,” when they’d left their purse
back at the house, the girls did a great job of sounding like five year olds
playing at being business women. I’d like to think that, had they failed either
of this week’s tasks, they’d have headed off to La Cabana café in search of Romy
and Michelle’s “businesswomen’s special.”

Wearable
technology may be the future but it’s still a way off

The brief in this week’s second show, was
to create a piece of ‘wearable technology’ which, according to the voiceover,
is a market that’s “worth millions of pounds.” Way to go, researchers.
Unfortunately, both teams completely missed the brief, and tried to stitch
random bits of kit into the most generic garments they could find. The boys
contravened every privacy law ever drafted, by plugging a webcam into the kind
of shapeless grey sweater that Susan Boyle would watch Take The High Road in.
The girls realised that every woman craves a black jacket with solar panels as
epaulettes, and a USB phone charger in the pocket. Plus, flashing red LED
stitched into the lining, so she can go to parties dressed as a traffic hazard.

If
you want to get ahead, stand out

The early shows of The Apprentice are
always a logistics nightmare, as clusters of anonymous suits run frantically
down alleyways and talk into their mobiles as if they’ve never used a phone.
The key, therefore, is to get yourself noticed, and two candidates achieved
this with aplomb. First project manager Sarah shared her valuable business
insights; advising her team members to use loads of lippy, short skirts and
high heels. Since they weren’t selling their bucket of cleaning supplies (£250,
thank you very much) to Stringfellows, this advice went unheeded. Over on the
boys’ team, Robert was head and shoulders above his colleagues. Literally. So
elongated that he could trigger Napoleon Complex in a giraffe, he relished his
lanky frame, and chose to dress it like he was renting out deckchairs on the
Margate seafront. Sadly, when Lord Sugar advised the boys to pull up their
socks,” it was clear that Robert’s time was up, since he never wears any.

Always
pass the buck

With responsibilities being handed back and
forth like a gift-wrapped turd, this week’s double-bill showcased countless
examples of blame-shifting. This lot didn’t even wait until they were in the
boardroom to start stabbing each other in the back. While Robert ignored Lord
Sugar’s suggestion that he PM the boys for the wearable tech project, the girls
took it in turns to push responsibility onto each other: “I sell scarves, I
don’t do styling.” And if your ideas end up being terrible, you can always pin
it on that passerby you asked for their opinion, blaming it “on our customer research.”
Top tip – never ask a woman in a lemon yellow twin-set for fashion advice. Or
Nick, for that matter, who confidently stated that the shapeless grey sweater
could “have a chance in the market.” Doncaster, maybe.